I have an assigned parking space next to a car that hasn’t moved in years, has tags from '20 and in covered in dust. Otherwise it’s a brand new car. Obviously I don’t own the parking lot, the apartment complex does. I’m about 90% sure the owner was my apartment’s previous renter that had to move back to their home country. I have no way to contact this person.
What happens to cars like this? It’s behind a gate so it’s doubtful that it would ever be seen by DOT and towed for having old plates.
Is there any avenue for some random Joe, like me, to take possession? This is in CA btw.
Check your state’s laws about abandoned property, specifically the timeframe something needs to be left behind to be considered “abandoned.” It can be anywhere between a week and a year in most places. Once that has been established, it’s more or less up for grabs to anyone who wants to take possession and responsibility for it. But again, check your local laws for the specifics.
I don’t think you can do anything about it. In my jurisdiction, when it happens in my parking lot, I call the police and have it ticketed as an abandoned vehicle (I think that’s what the ticket is for, off the top of my head), then I call a tow/impound company to come and pick it up. That’s the extent of my involvement of it. If I wanted to take possession of it, I assume I’d have to wait until the police decide the rightful owner isn’t going to pick it up and then buy it from a police auction.
If it’s sitting on private property, behind a gate or otherwise, it’s unlikely to ever get towed without the property owner’s consent. Some cities have laws regarding unregistered vehicles, but the police aren’t generally trolling apartment parking lots looking for them.
Really? So if I park my car in a parking lot and, for whatever reason, leave it there for [some specific amount of time], anyone that wants it, can have it? That doesn’t sound right.
If an unauthorized vehicle is parked on private property, the California Vehicle Code authorizes the owner of any private lot to, subsequent to notifying the police, cause the removal of a vehicle to the nearest public garage, provided there are properly posted signs at all entrances to the property that prohibits public parking reference Section CVC 22658(a).
Who can cause a vehicle to be removed?
The property owner and any person authorized as the agent of the property owner acting on their behalf. Vehicles illegally parked blocking driveways or designated fire lanes may be towed provided the entrances are properly marked, which includes the name of the tow company on the sign. The property owner or agent need not be present at the scene.
Note
If you cause the removal of a vehicle from private property and the sign requirement has not been met, you could be liable for any towing and or storage charges up to four times the amount.
The legal definition of “abandoned property” is: “Abandoned property is defined as personal property left by an owner who intentionally relinquishes all rights to its control.”
Parking your car in a lot is not relinquishing rights to its control.
Causing the car to be towed is easy enough if the apartment complex is already set up to tow cars. BTDT at the condo I used to run. FLs’ laws are substantially the same as CA’s: only certain representatives of the lot-owning corporation can order a tow, there must be tow company signs, etc.
But that doesn’t really advance the OP’s agenda. Once it’s towed, the tow company has legal possession (not ownership), and is entitled to rack up hefty daily fees for storing the car.
If the apartment lot does have tow-company signs, that will include their name and phone number. If I was the OP my first move would be to go visit them rather than call them. Folks who work there get harried a lot on the phone and if you’re there in person you can be all friendly-like as you ask them, hypothetically, what happens after they take a car and nobody can be found to claim it.
There is a standard answer for that and the tow office person can tell you what it is. Maybe it’s a police auction, maybe it’s a tow company auction, maybe it’s ???
The answer to that question will inform your next move.
If you can’t get your much deserved cooperation and justice, you can do what a friend of mine did when he couldn’t get an abandoned car removed from the front of his house. He called AAA and had it towed to the parking lot in a bad neighborhood adjacent to a business that had closed, so the lot was unused. It was probably stripped down to its frame within a few days but it, or whatever is left of it, is probably still there.
Disclaimer: I am NOT recommending that you do this. Just relating a solution implemented by a friend.
There are only 2 ways for someone else to take possession of that vehicle. The first is to have the legal owner or the a representative of the legal owner’s estate release interest in the vehicle. The second would be for the vehicle to be taken into possession of generally a licensed towing company. After taking possession of the vehicle, the towing company can charge the registered and/or legal owner towing, impound and storage fees. The towing company must make an effort to contact the legal/registered owner about the vehicle. After a period of time specified by state law, the towing company can declare the vehicle as abandoned and sell the vehicle to offset the moneys owed for towing, impound and storage. Most states require the vehicle to be sold at a public auction to the highest bidder. In my younger days I use to buy cars at impound auctions and either get them in operable condition to sell or part them out.
I find it difficult to believe that a new car could have a clear title that would allow anyone other than the lender to take (re)possession of the vehicle.
Not relevant to the OP’s question, but I am reminded of what happened when a work colleague emigrated to Australia.
They lived a couple of hundred miles from the port of embarkation, and he decided that buying an old banger and abandoning it at the port would be cheaper than the rail fares plus the cost of shipping their luggage.
About a year later we had a letter from him and he wrote that the Port Authority had tracked him down and sent him a cheque for some small amount which was the balance of what the car had sold for at auction, less various fees and charges. He. of course, was highly delighted.
A nail-biter to the finish! I was worried we might learn that the bill was for a year or however long of parking fees, and that it might even exceed the value of the car and the train/shipping fares combined.
I’m in PA, not CA, so this doesn’t apply to the OP. This is only for the possible interest of others coming into this thread and only applies to PA. Also keep in mind that I am an engineer, not a lawyer.
I happen to own a couple of rental properties. If someone abandons a vehicle on one of my properties, I can file suit to claim possession of the vehicle. I have no idea how long I have to wait before considering the vehicle to be “abandoned”. If the court agrees, they will issue a judgement which renders any previous claims of title null and void. After that, I can get the vehicle titled in my name.
Alternately, I can have the car towed to a salvage yard. After some period of time (again I have no idea how long) the salvage operator can claim that the vehicle is abandoned and can file suit to claim title of ownership for the vehicle.
If I don’t own the property then I have no claim to the vehicle. I could try to file suit to claim the vehicle, but the court would probably just laugh at me.
The problem is when you leave your car, even with a clear title, on someone else’s property. We get cars left in our parking lot from time to time. Sometimes it’s clearly a junk vehicle and someone was probably just walking away from it. However, we’ve had a few times over the years where we’ve had a car towed after it sits in the lot for a few days, then the owner comes looking for it a week later and it turns out they went on vacation and didn’t want to pay for parking at the airport or it broke down but they can’t get it fixed until next week.
To put it in a different perspective, imagine getting home from work to find a car in your driveway. You don’t know who it belongs to, the neighbors don’t recognize it and a few days later it’s still there. It’s still not your car, but it’s on your property and you can have it removed.
In either case, what’s the property owner supposed to do? You don’t have the contact information for the owner, you don’t have the contact information for the lien holder, if there is one, you just have a car, you don’t own and can’t move sitting there.
Property owners have options to have the vehicle removed from their property without affecting or being affected by issues of ownership.
But OP specifically was talking about seizing the vehicle, which is about ownership, not trespassing. And in matters of possession, the lender has to be considered.
This is it in every jurisdiction I’ve ever heard of. You cannot simply abandon a car for someone else to take possession of because cars are registered and have an owner of record. State laws about the transfer of car titles are very specific. You can have it towed and then the tow business or the state through the police or other agency may be able to take ownership of the car and sell it. I’ve never heard of individuals being able to do that and I have seen and heard of problems arising when individuals do that. None the less, it does get done, many a car has had ownership transferred on the basis of a questionable signature and people that do abandon their cars rarely come back to fight over the title. Ever less than none the less, I don’t know the laws in every state, some of them are a lot less strict than others, maybe in East Dakota you can take over a car abandoned in your parking space.
As an aside, when a car was abandoned in the parking lot of a commercial property that I was leasing I got a couple of guys to push it out onto the street for the police take care of. Seems to be a common practice.
In PA, you can have the vehicle towed, or you can wait (again, I have no idea how long) and file suit to claim possession of it.
IANAL, but in PA I think if the court decides in your favor, then all previous claims of title are no longer valid. As I understand it, this includes any claim from the lender.
I only looked into it because one of my tenants left her mother’s broken minivan on one of my properties (the tenant was driving it around until it broke). Her mother wasn’t mentally capable of signing anything so the daughter couldn’t get the title put into her name. I was afraid I was going to end up with this crappy near-worthless minivan that wasn’t even drivable stuck on my property after the tenant moved out. Fortunately the van mysteriously disappeared one day. I have no idea if they got someone to tow it or if they junked it, though PA has been cracking down on junking vehicles that you don’t have a title for. Whatever happened to it, I don’t care. Once it was off of my property it was no longer my problem.
